The existing requirements of a field area for soccer, hockey, and other team sports limit the number of facilities available for playing these sports and therefore the number of participants in team sports. The invention permits the playing of team sports where the skills involved in these sports may be enjoyed and developed with rules for team sports compatible with the invention in a much smaller field area. Furthermore, the invention contemplates a sport played within the confines to be described in which physical contact and injuries resulting therefrom are eliminated or at least minimized.
One of the problems of providing a field game for mass participation as opposed to participation only by those who have and have acquired and developed skills, is the problem encountered in playing ball type field games in an open area. The playing ball is not contained and many delays of the game occur to retrieve the ball. In attempting to surround the playing areas with walls as a solution to this problem, the expenses involved providing such a wall presents another and sometime unsurmountable problem. Furthermore, the provision of walls which may be assembled and disassembled readily and stored also presents problems.
Typical prior art attempts are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,883,120 3,986,342 and 4,068,840. A particularly complicated structure for an off the wall game is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,070,805. Note is also made of the enclosed game disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,758,106 and further wall or panel type structures may be reviewed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,873,094 and 3,358,969.
The need for indoor games has recently been acknowledged and an attempt made to provide a field as in the disclosure of such in the Washington Post of Jan. 5, 1978 at page C8.